Playing to a few hundred people night-after-night at gigs across London is a great way to start for any artist trying to break into the music industry. So that’s exactly what Leicestershire-born singer-songwriter Molly Smitten-Downes did. But when an email landed in her inbox inviting her to play to an audience of 125 million people, she could hardly say no!

Despite originally saying ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Eurovision, Molly quickly made a U-turn after finding out she’d have creative freedom and the chance to write her own song that inevitably would be played across Europe. Just a few months later and Molly was on a flight to Denmark performing Children of the Universe, which became the first British Eurovision entry to be entirely self-written by the performing artist since Katrina and the Waves triumphed in 1997.

Looking at the past decade, Molly ranks as the UK’s 3rd most successful Eurovision entry and as Molly says herself ‘Eurovision is part of my journey: it’s not the journey itself’, so there are still big things ahead for this Leicestershire girl.

Playing to a few hundred people night-after-night at gigs across London is a great way to start for any artist trying to break into the music industry. So that’s exactly what Leicestershire-born singer-songwriter Molly Smitten-Downes did. But when an email landed in her inbox inviting her to play to an audience of 125 million people, she could hardly say no!

Despite originally saying ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Eurovision, Molly quickly made a U-turn after finding out she’d have creative freedom and the chance to write her own song that inevitably would be played across Europe. Just a few months later and Molly was on a flight to Denmark performing Children of the Universe, which became the first British Eurovision entry to be entirely self-written by the performing artist since Katrina and the Waves triumphed in 1997.

Looking at the past decade, Molly ranks as the UK’s 3rd most successful Eurovision entry and as Molly says herself ‘Eurovision is part of my journey: it’s not the journey itself’, so there are still big things ahead for this Leicestershire girl.